743 The Will of Autumn

As those illusory moths disappeared into the sky, Su Ming lifted his head. He saw the boundless starry sky rotating above, as well as longships charging forward. All of these longships were black, and all of them had dozens of people in Constellation Robes standing within them.

Dao Yuan laughed arrogantly at the surface of the sea in the distance. The Sacred Constellation Robe on his body was shining with a brilliant, dark-colored light, and it turned into a compact defense around his body.

Su Ming averted his gaze from the sky and looked at the spot where Yu Xuan had left, then at the space where Bai Su had disappeared. He looked at the lonely ninth summit and the endless broken limbs floating on the surface of the sea.

"They all died…" Su Ming mumbled.

His body was no longer corporeal but had become so faded away that he was almost transparent. Grief appeared on his face. He no longer bothered with Dao Yuan or the various longships descending from the sky at that moment. He lifted his feet and moved slowly towards the ninth summit.

Fatigue, disappointment, and grief filled Su Ming's heart and soul. He returned to the ninth summit and stopped right outside his Master's cave abode.

Even at that moment, Su Ming came to stand as the wall that protected the ninth summit.

He grabbed the killing sword with his illusory right hand, placing it diagonally so the tip of was facing his lower right. The blade was stable, but the tip of the sword was trembling slightly due to its spirit. It was thirsting for blood and looking forward to killing.

Su Ming stood silently. His hair was like a ball of flame that would never be extinguished no matter how hard wind blew against it. He stood there, releasing his spirit. At that instant, he seemed to have truly become one with the ninth summit.

One person. One sword. A protection.

His body was illusory. There was not a single ripple of power within him. The only thing that remained was the power of his soul. That soul could be said to be his Atman, a form of divine sense, and also Su Ming's undying and imperishable will, which was, by then, the only thing that remained of him.

He looked at the sky, and a small smile gradually appeared on his lips. However, there was no hint of carefreeness with it. Instead, it was filled with sadness.

In silence, Qian Chen came up to Su Ming's side with gritted teeth even though his body was trembling. He brought out a black knife from his bosom. He was incredibly afraid, so terrified that his body was trembling nonstop. Sweat poured down his body… but true courage was fearlessness when a person was in the face of danger. It was also a form of will that would not allow a person to retreat even when terrified. This… was courage.

With a bitter smile, the bald crane banished the thought of escape. It let out a long sigh in its heart and flew to Su Ming's side before fixing its stare on the sky. There was a solemnness and madness on its face, something that had never been seen before.

"I'm sorry, I promised to take you out of the land of Berserkers, but I… didn't manage to do it in time," Su Ming said softly while looking at the sky.

Qian Chen was trembling, but he still shook his head. He did not speak.

At that moment, the numerous longships in the starry sky suddenly let out piercing cries and turned into long black arcs that charged towards the ground.

In the blink of an eye, there was a thousand longships in the air near the ninth summit. Waves of mighty pressure that was difficult to describe with words spread out from the thousands of Dao Slaves dressed in Constellation Robes standing on the longships.

Even if there were no Dao Slaves in the Third Step among them, but the shock and destruction that could be brought forth by thousands of cultivators in the Second Step could sometimes be even more shocking than that of five cultivators in the Third Step.

Their aloof gazes and Dao Yuan's crazed roars after his arrogance was restored brought this disaster to its most intense state.

"Kill him! Destroy that mountain! Make sure that not a single blade of grass remains there! Damn it! He nearly killed me! He nearly killed me!"

Dao Yuan's eyes were red. Just a moment ago, he had been surrounded by death. It had been the closest he had ever come to dying. It made the fear in his heart reach its most extreme state. Now that he was filled with a sense of safety, his fear turned into an equal amount of anger.

Murderous aura shone in the eyes of the thousands of Dao Slaves on the longships, but they did not attack without command. Unless it was completely necessary and the situation forced them to, the members of Morning Dao Sect would not attack by themselves. However, the instant Dao Yuan's voice rose into the air, the thousands of people flew out together and turned into thousands of long arcs that charged towards the ninth summit.

Their presence was shocking and even surpassed the mighty pressure brought by the five Dao Slaves in the Third Step. There was also a sense of suffocation brought by them.

Qian Chen's eyes turned red. He let out a crazed roar and was just about to rush out while flinging all caution to the wind, but right when he lifted his foot, Su Ming pushed his left hand against Qian Chen's shoulder. The power of Su Ming's Atman went into the man's mind and soul, and a roar resounded in Qian Chen's mind. He shivered and fell unconscious.

Su Ming pushed him gently backwards, and his body flew towards the ninth summit's cave abode.

"Many of ours have already died. We can't have any more of our own dying…" Su Ming mumbled. When his Atman spread out, it turned into a wave of impact that swept up the stunned bald crane by his side. Only when it was sent into the cave abode as well that the bald crane registered what was happening. Its body trembled as it looked at Su Ming with a dazed expression.

It was as if only at that moment did it truly get to know Su Ming. As it continued looking at him, this bald crane who believed itself to be heartless felt its eyes watering.

"Help me take care of my senior brothers…" Su Ming whispered softly to it. He then took a step towards the incoming thousands of Dao Slaves in the Second Step and charged over to them with a firm resolution as he held the killing sword in hand.

Most of the thousands of Dao Slaves were more powerful than Su Ming. This was a massacre that bore no suspense because the result was already clear. This was a single person fighting against thousands of people.

A shocking roar reverberated in the air, and that was just the near hundred people at the forefront of the charge lifting their right hands together to execute a single divine ability. It turned into endless starlight that crashed into Su Ming's illusory body.

Without the existence of the three souls that previously sealed his soul, the instant the starlight touched Su Ming's illusory body, the scene of two shadows overlapping but not touching each other as if they did not exist in the same dimension did not appear again. Instead, as the light roared, it seemed to have turned into countless needles that caused Su Ming's illusory body to crumble swiftly. He turned into glittering sparkles, and once most of them were extinguished, the remainder fell back before gathering together once again a thousand feet away.

They turned into Su Ming, but he was even more transparent than before. It was as if he would scatter away if wind blew against him.

However, at the instant Su Ming's body crumbled, he had slashed once. That slash contained the might of the first slash he had executed after his soul was completed. It contained his soul and also his awakening to the Abyss.

It contained… his Origin divine ability!

As that slash swept through the air, it charged past the hundreds of people at the front, but it did not seem to contain any destructive power. It was just like a gentle breeze.

However, when Su Ming's body crumbled and gathered together once again into an even weaker illusion, the hundreds of people right at the front of the charge Su Ming had just cut… suddenly started aging.

It was as if the flow of time had been accelerated for them. The operations of their bodies begun to run exponentially faster, and their faces soon aged a dozen or more years. Waves of rotting air also begun to spread from their bodies.

Their hair turned grayish white. Wrinkles appeared on their faces. Their life force seemed to be devoured by space itself, and most of this life force disappeared within an instant.

In fact, there were a dozen something people… who instantly turned into corpses as their bodies withered and aged because their levels of cultivation were not high and they did not have many years of life left. Even their Nascent Divinities found it difficult to escape from their bodies; all of them died as they withered.

At the same time as this dozen something people died, the lifeforce and life of near a hundred people vanished. Wisps of white smoke left their bodies and charged towards Su Ming. They instantly fused with him, causing his see-through body to immediately look much more corporeal.

"Is this my awakened Origin divine ability after my soul was completed..?" Su Ming mumbled.

He could sense his soul getting stronger at a maddening pace as those white wisps of smoke entered his body. The life force he absorbed seemed to be a substance that was grossly lacking within him. It was as if he had become a dry sponge at that moment, and he was continuously absorbing other people's life force and years of life to complete everything about himself.

However, this awakening was a little too late for Su Ming, because even if that slash had allowed him to absorb a large amount of life force, it still could not fill up the unchangeable difference of power between him and those thousands of Dao Slaves.

As Dao Yuan screamed shrilly and the thousands of Dao Slaves closed in on him once again, they executed their divine abilities at the same time. The starlight that was stirred up was enough to replace all light in the world. As that light filled the air, it was like an ancient beast made of stars devouring Su Ming whole.

At the instant it devoured him, he suddenly gained an epiphany. What he had come to understand was his Origin divine ability. It was… the will of autumn, was it not?

It might not be the color of autumn, but the life force he absorbed was like autumn in his body. It was a fusion between death and life. It was the true epitome of change.

"Autumn…"

As Su Ming whispered this, his illusory body instantly shone with a red light. It was the color of autumn. An endless amount of snow also appeared out of nowhere around him. The flakes of snow withered once they fell, and they were like the leaves of autumn as they did so. If someone observed from afar, they'd see snow at first, but once they blinked, they'd think that it was the falling leaves they were seeing.

Su Ming's power erupted due to his epiphany and moved straight from the initial stage of Life Matrix to the middle stage of Life Matrix. It also appeared as the snow and falling leaves around him interlaced with each other, making the color of autumn on his body denser.

At the instant the thousands of Dao Slaves closed in and the starlight formed by the second batch of nearly a thousand people submerged Su Ming, understanding appeared in his eyes. His level of cultivation then moved from the middle stage of Life Matrix straight to the later stage of that Realm!

Only one more step, and he would be able to reach the second Realm in the path of Life Cultivation—Life Privation!